Ellie Searl Stories

2/29/2012

ECHOES OF MARIAN HALL - Part Two

(NOTE to Reader: "Echoes of Marian Hall" is a serial story. Part One was posted in January, Part Two in February, and so on. Each part will make sense on its own, but it will make the most sense if you read them in order. See the titles above.)

THEME: TAKING A LEAP

All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous unpremeditated act without benefit of experience. ~ Henry Miller

I arrived home at four. The twenty-eight mile
drive from Marian Hall hadn’t erased my agitation. Katie hugged my knees; her world of joy reminded
me of normal.

“So, how was it?” Ed asked. “Do you love it there?”

“Where to start,” I said. “Do we have any wine?”

After an hour of relating my day, Ed had it
all figured out. “So these are troubled girls from dysfunctional homes who do
something bad, go to court, get sent to live with other troubled girls from
dysfunctional homes all in the same colorless, cinder blocked, stinky-bathroomed,
linoleum-floored, musty-furnitured room of a dead-bolted apartment inside a
locked institution surrounded by a chain link fence and watched over by a bunch
of nuns who patrol the building clattering keys around their waists.” He took a chicken out of the fridge and
rinsed it under the faucet. “Now that’s
living.” He slapped the chicken onto the
cutting board. “What, exactly, did you expect?”

“I
don’t know – I didn’t think I’d care.
That it’s just a job? Like
babysitting?”

Ed cut the legs off the carcass and sliced
through the joints.

“El, these are locked-up teenage girls. Did I mention dysfunctional?” He chopped off
the wings. “They’re not home making a chicken dinner with
their moms and dads, who could probably give a flying fuck.” He winced and
looked around for Katie, who lay under the kitchen table drawing circles on her
steno pad, imitating Ed working on his graduate assignments. “Right now they’re all in the same room,
eating the same crap, knowing that tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow are going
to be exactly as it is right this minute.
It’s not a happy place.”

Ed cracked the breastbone and hacked it into
two sections. He wiped blood off the
fleshy pieces and threw them into a bag of seasoned cornmeal and flour. White puffs danced as Ed shook the bag. He dropped the pieces into a hot iron skillet,
the sizzle reminding me of Sunday dinners at home in the Adirondacks. Tender, crispy fried chicken, real mashed
potatoes, smooth gravy—all expertly prepared by my mother who didn’t send me
off to live in a reform school, no matter how disrespectful I was or how many
curfews I broke. But then I didn’t get
caught shoplifting or running off with a man twice my age or sexually abusing
the next-door neighbor’s kid in the woods.

Bottom line.
It wasn’t a happy place.

“There’s something else,” I said. Grease
splatted my hand. I made sure Katie was still under the table.

“Gloria started to tell me about putting the
girls in the hole. I think it’s a punishment room.”

“It’s probably just a time-out place. Like the principal’s office.”

“They put the dispunkals in a hole?” There she stood—right behind me, clutching her
pencil and steno pad--innocence rising from her face.

It would be several days before I would give
Ed a private update—where Katie’s budding mind wouldn’t absorb all the sadness.

* * *

On my second day, I worked the three o’clock
shift. This time Diane, a veteran worker, would be on duty with me. She “kept
things tidy,” according to Sister Pauline.
I pushed the doorbell and after a couple of minutes Marvin, the
handyman, spoke through the intercom.
“Que voulez-vous?”

“I’m Ellie Searl.”

“Qui?”

“Ellie Searl. I – je travail - work here – ici
– dans Apartment One.” I held up a finger as if he could see it.

“Eh? Qui?”

Was he deaf?
Didn’t he remember me? I wondered how long this would go on. I wondered
when I’d get my own set of keys.

Marvin let me in. He laid a mop against the wall and motioned
for me to follow him. “You come,” he said, and we headed toward Apartment
One.

Muffled screeching came from within the
apartment as Marvin unlocked the door—like someone was screaming into a pillow.
Marvin ignored the commotion and walked away. Once I was inside, shrieks
reverberated off cinder block walls—a hen fight in an echo chamber. A tall, dark-haired, burly woman—Diane, I
assumed—stood between Greta and Marlene who were trying to hit each other. The
other girls, fists air-punching, circled the fighters, egging them on,
cheering—as if they had bets on the winner.
I had walked in on a teenage boxing match.

My first reaction was to leave. Quit. Right then. I hadn’t signed up for referee duty.

Sister Margaret was outside her small room,
hands twitching at her sides. “Someone
should go get Sister Pauline,” she said when she saw me. I started toward the
living room, but her shaking fingers clutched my sleeve. “Don’t get in the
middle of that. Please. Go get Sister
Pauline.”

By that time, Greta had thrown Marlene to the
floor and was trying to kick her, but she lost her balance and fell on
top of her instead. Diane dropped into the
midst of it all to unglue the wrestlers.

“You little bastard,” Greta said. “You took it—I
know you did.”

“I’ll get Sister Pauline,” I yelled to
Diane.

Sister Margaret touched my arm and said,
“Thank you, dear.”

“No!”
Diane shouted. “I’ll handle it.”

Sister Margaret shook her head. She had tears
in her eyes. She went into her room and shut the door.

I stood there.
Like an idiot. Watching. Undecided.
Scared. Then I got mad.

I moved in to the fight and bellowed. “STOP
IT! BOTH OF YOU! NOW!” I pointed at
Marlene. “GET UP.” I pointed at Greta. “YOU! SIT OVER THERE.”

Maybe it was pure novelty—the new worker
having a fit, the one who the day before hadn’t made much of an
impression. Whatever the magic, the
girls sunk into a kind of stupor.
Marlene and Greta rolled away from each other and stared at me. I glared back and continued to point toward
the couch. “Move,” I said. Greta stood
up and sank into the sofa. She stuffed her arms into a pretzel. One of circling girls pointed at me and
laughed. Marlene just lay there, panting.

“Well, haven't you got the touch.” Diane sneered at me—as if I had stepped in
her personal shit pile of responsibility.
“What else can you do? Raise the dead?” She got up and tucked her
T-shirt back into her jeans. “I have my own ways.”

It wasn’t clear why she needed to demean me in
front of the girls. Hadn’t I helped?
Wasn’t she the one who liked to “keep things tidy”? But then, she had lost control—and I had found
it. Her credibility had been put to question.
Apparently, I wasn’t building rapport with the veteran.

“You,” Diane gestured to Greta. “You’re outta
here.”

Greta started to say something, but she must
have thought better of it because she closed her mouth almost as soon as she
opened it.

Then
Diane ordered the others to their rooms—doors open—until supper. No talking, no
music, nothing. “Just sit on your beds and shut up.” Some mumbled stuff about
it being unfair and that they hadn’t done anything. “Or you’ll all get the
same,” Diane responded. That got them moving. Marlene giggled like it was all a
game.

“Yeah, I’ll bet you don’t,” Diane smirked. Somehow,
she head managed to regain whatever distance had been lost—she was boss again. And the girls understood whatever it was she
wasn’t saying.

Diane turned her attention to me. “You go patrol the upstairs,” she said in the
same tone she had used with the girls. I felt reduced to underling status. “Make
sure they follow the rules. Take notes.”

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“Miss Kicker and I are taking a little trip to
the zoo.” Diane grinned and cocked her head.
Her composure, and her control, all back together again.

I watched them go out of the apartment, Diane’s
arm around Greta’s shoulder. Had Greta’s
head not been hanging, it would have appeared that Diane was leading a prized
student to an award ceremony.

3 comments:

I worked there as a night supervisor and felt the nuns that the one head nun that was in charge was inhumane. One night, one of the girls came to me asking for a pain killer because her ear was hurting. I was instructed never to give the girls anything so I contacted the head nun who refused to provide an analgesic. I indicated in my notes that the young lady complained of ear pain, that she was restless all night and moaning in her sleep. The following night the young lady was again complaining of ear pain and when I questioned her found that she had gone all day without receiving pain medication.

In continuing my comment......I again made note of the fact that the young lady was in pain and restless and moaning throughout the night. It took three days before she was seen or provided medication. It was horrible.

Felt bad for all the girls there. I heard about runaways, but other than the above was not aware of abuse. Working nights I would not have witnessed interaction between staff and the girls. I did hear about the punishment room, but don't remember hearing of anyone being put there.

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Ellie Searl writes of human nature - the ordinary and the eccentric - getting to the heart of life’s yearnings, idiosyncrasies, and ambiguities. The splendor of the Adirondack Mountains and Lake Champlain seeped into her being, as did the rhythms of small-town life. Her slice-of-life storytelling draws inspiration from rich experiences with diverse cultures, quirky personalities, and unusual encounters while living, working, and raising a family in New York, Delaware, Vermont, Ontario, Quebec, Ohio, and Illinois. Ellie’s stories reflect her passion for justice, equality, and freedom of the spirit. She taught the art of writing to Chicagoland middle-schoolers, whose curiosity, energy, and enthusiasm for life gave her insight into the dreams of the sometimes disregarded. When not writing, Ellie designs and formats books. She also creates and manages websites and blogs.

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Carolyn B Healyis a therapist-turned-writer who has invested hundreds of hours listening to people as they rewrite their life stories. While her interests include serious things like grief, resilience and transformative change, her vantage point allows her to address them with insight and a certain dark humor. A lifelong Chicagoan, she grew up the only child of a single mom, which fueled her curiosity about how other people live, and strengthened her backbone. She has been a columnist for her local newspaper and is writing a book on finding the hidden gifts in grieving.